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Version: 1.15

Command line tools

Playwright comes with the command line tools.

Usage#

npx playwright --help
# Running from `package.json` script{  "scripts": {    "help": "playwright --help"  }}

Install browsers#

Playwright can install supported browsers.

# Running without arguments will install default browsersnpx playwright install

You can also install specific browsers by providing an argument:

# Install WebKitnpx playwright install webkit

See all supported browsers:

npx playwright install --help

Generate code#

npx playwright codegen wikipedia.org

Run codegen and perform actions in the browser. Playwright CLI will generate JavaScript code for the user interactions. codegen will attempt to generate resilient text-based selectors.

Preserve authenticated state#

Run codegen with --save-storage to save cookies and localStorage at the end. This is useful to separately record authentication step and reuse it later.

npx playwright codegen --save-storage=auth.json# Perform authentication and exit.# auth.json will contain the storage state.

Run with --load-storage to consume previously loaded storage. This way, all cookies and localStorage will be restored, bringing most web apps to the authenticated state.

npx playwright open --load-storage=auth.json my.web.appnpx playwright codegen --load-storage=auth.json my.web.app# Perform actions in authenticated state.

Codegen with custom setup#

If you would like to use codegen in some non-standard setup (for example, use browserContext.route(url, handler[, options])), it is possible to call page.pause() that will open a separate window with codegen controls.

const { chromium } = require('playwright');
(async () => {  // Make sure to run headed.  const browser = await chromium.launch({ headless: false });
  // Setup context however you like.  const context = await browser.newContext({ /* pass any options */ });  await context.route('**/*', route => route.continue());
  // Pause the page, and start recording manually.  const page = await context.newPage();  await page.pause();})();

Open pages#

With open, you can use Playwright bundled browsers to browse web pages. Playwright provides cross-platform WebKit builds that can be used to reproduce Safari rendering across Windows, Linux and macOS.

# Open page in Chromiumnpx playwright open example.com
# Open page in WebKitnpx playwright wk example.com

Emulate devices#

open can emulate mobile and tablet devices from the playwright.devices list.

# Emulate iPhone 11.npx playwright open --device="iPhone 11" wikipedia.org

Emulate color scheme and viewport size#

# Emulate screen size and color scheme.npx playwright open --viewport-size=800,600 --color-scheme=dark twitter.com

Emulate geolocation, language and timezone#

# Emulate timezone, language & location# Once page opens, click the "my location" button to see geolocation in actionnpx playwright open --timezone="Europe/Rome" --geolocation="41.890221,12.492348" --lang="it-IT" maps.google.com

Inspect selectors#

During open or codegen, you can use following API inside the developer tools console of any browser.

playwright.$(selector)#

Query Playwright selector, using the actual Playwright query engine, for example:

> playwright.$('.auth-form >> text=Log in');
<button>Log in</button>

playwright.$$(selector)#

Same as playwright.$, but returns all matching elements.

> playwright.$$('li >> text=John')
> [<li>, <li>, <li>, <li>]

playwright.inspect(selector)#

Reveal element in the Elements panel (if DevTools of the respective browser supports it).

> playwright.inspect('text=Log in')

playwright.selector(element)#

Generates selector for the given element.

> playwright.selector($0)
"div[id="glow-ingress-block"] >> text=/.*Hello.*/"

Take screenshot#

# See command helpnpx playwright screenshot --help
# Wait 3 seconds before capturing a screenshot after page loads ('load' event fires)npx playwright screenshot \    --device="iPhone 11" \    --color-scheme=dark \    --wait-for-timeout=3000 \    twitter.com twitter-iphone.png
# Capture a full page screenshotnpx playwright screenshot --full-page en.wikipedia.org wiki-full.png

Generate PDF#

PDF generation only works in Headless Chromium.

# See command helpnpx playwright pdf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF wiki.pdf

Install system dependencies#

Ubuntu 18.04 and Ubuntu 20.04 system dependencies can get installed automatically. This is useful for CI environments.

# See command helpnpx playwright install-deps

You can also install the dependencies for a single browser only by passing it as an argument:

npx playwright install-deps chromium